Line #18 YMMV/TheEyeOfArgon


1	* AntiClimaxBoss: [[spoiler: Agaphim]] gets [[ManOnFire burned alive]] by Carthena, and it isn't even a fight. [[spoiler: That said, the TrueFinalBoss turns out to be this giant leech thing, and that actually ''is'' a pretty tough fight for Gringr.]]
2	* BileFascination: Arguably the ''only'' reason it's so well-known.
3	* FetishRetardant: With descriptions such as "[Carthena's] sagging nipples" and "the amorphos [sic], broad bleated [sic] female," Fetish Retardant abounds.
4	* GeniusBonus: There really is such a thing as a "scarlet emerald", though it's more commonly known as bixbite or red beryl, and it's not clear if that was what Theis was actually going for.
5	* HarsherInHindsight: For some readers, Website/TheOtherWiki's claim that Jim Theis gave up writing due to [[NeverLiveItDown not being able to live down]] the humiliation (and that Theis explicitly said that his feelings had been hurt) makes the story harder to enjoy or laugh at.
6	* HoYay: As Yahtzee Croshaw noted, there is a strong homoerotic subtext that Jim Theis was probably unaware of. For instance, this bit of unintentional subtext:
7	--> Grignr's emerald green orbs glared lustfully at the wallowing soldier struggling before his chestnut swirled mount.
8	* MemeticBadass: The rat Grignr fights. It's the most difficult enemy Grignr faces [[spoiler:apart from the [[TrueFinalBoss Eye itself.]]]]
9	* {{Narm}}: A challenge at SciFi conventions is to read as far as you can in a dramatic voice without laughing. A similar challenge involves inhaling helium beforehand.
10	* SoBadItsGood: Some people think it's hilarious. Some... think it's just awful.
11	** Some fans of [[HeroicFantasy the genre Theis was attempting]] say that the concepts behind the story aren't that bad. Theis seems to have been influenced by Creator/RobertEHoward and his ''Literature/ConanTheBarbarian'' stories, particularly "Literature/TheTowerOfTheElephant" (an idol has an enormous jewel which Conan takes), "Literature/QueenOfTheBlackCoast" (Conan speaks of having just witnessed an encounter almost exactly like Grignr's in the tavern); "Literature/ThePeopleOfTheBlackCircle" (the evil shamans), "Literature/RoguesInTheHouse" (the hero imprisoned, later using a bone to escape; Conan also languishes in prison in ''Literature/TheHourOfTheDragon'') and "Literature/TheScarletCitadel" (lengthy explorations in the underground passages). The use of "emerald orbs" and "life fluid" type euphemisms are also ''very'' characteristic of Howard's writing. Grignr's declaration that his people live free and wild in the hills without need of decadent baubles is not unlike statements Conan made in several stories:
12	---> (from "People of the Black Circle", to a kidnapped queen saying she has to go back to her kingdom):
13	---> "Why?" he demanded angrily. "To chafe your rump on golden thrones, and listen to the plaudits of smirking, velvet-skirted fools? Where is the gain? Listen: I was born in the hills of Cimmeria where the people are all barbarians. I have been a mercenary soldier, a corsair, a kozak, and a hundred other things. What king has roamed the countries, fought the battles, loved the women, and won the plunder that I have?"
14	** [[https://www.blackgate.com/2011/08/03/teaching-fantasy-ii-in-which-i-knowingly-assign-the-worst-short-story-in-the-history-of-sword-and-sorcery/ A teacher lists its positive points here]], though it ends up rather as DamnedByFaintPraise:
15	--->Had Theis been a student of mine and handed me “The Eye of Argon” as an assignment, I would have been thrilled. Here’s a partial list of the virtues the story displays that cannot be counted on in stories by high school students:
16	--->-You can tell what the author probably intended to say in almost every sentence.
17	--->-The story has characters.
18	--->-Something happens.
19	--->-Several somethings, even, with some detectable instances of cause and effect.
20	--->-The author has a unified idea of what he’s trying to accomplish, and he sticks with it from start to finish.
21	--->-The story has a beginning, a middle, and (in some versions of the text) an end.
22	--->-You can tell what tradition the author is writing in, and that his influences are deliberately embraced.
23	--->-It’s a long enough story to have required many days of sustained effort.
24	--->-You can tell that the author truly does care about what he’s writing.
25	--->Every one of those virtues could be followed by a but. But!
26	%%* {{Squick}}
27	%%-->''With a loud crack the rodents head parted from its squirming torso, sending out a sprinking shower of crimson gore, and trailing a slimy string of disjointed vertebrae, snapped trachea, esophagus, and jugular, disjointed hyoid bone, morose purpled stretched hide, and blood seared muscles.''
28
29	!!YMMV tropes in Creator/AdamCadre's ''Mystery Science Theater 3000'' fan-{{MST}}ing presentation:
30	* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments: This exchange:
31	-->''...a gusty billow of mirth, he once more concealed the tiny object beneath his loin cloth;''
32	-->'''Crow''': To join the other tiny object beneath his loincloth.
33	-->'''Mike''': Crow!
34	* SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome: Crow in the second skit.
35	--> '''Mike''': Wow! That was really something! Try this: "I have a dream that one day my four little children will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." \
36	'''Crow''' - No problem. "As Grignr sleeping, morbid notions prnacing morbidly into his oval. `The reddish orb of heat beng in the crimson sky.' Stated the terrible fetid nightmar. And his ofspring of four -- or maybe forty, however it may be -- will hav the dark morbid hand of blood juridicating over all of Ecordia. `Not red! Not reddish! not crimson! Not rose red! Not blood red!' Sayeth Dsipk the judge. But by the fetid entrails will the small rodents be accontd."

Context YMMV / TheEyeOfArgon